Penetrating the Mind and Ensnaring the Senses
by makeshiftpoet
Summary: An Occlumency lesson goes horribly wrong/right. Snape/Harry slash. 18 and up, please. This is a 10-chapter song/filmfic that is relatively OotP-compliant. However, I do take liberties. I own nothing from this created universe; I merely manipulate it.
1. Paranoid

Paranoid

It was 5:53 on a Monday evening, and as his feet shuffled heavily down the dungeon corridors to Snape's office, Harry Potter managed to swallow the lump of acid and bile that rose into the back of his throat. The sound of his footsteps echoed spookily against the damp, lichen-covered walls, and he struggled to suppress a shiver. He didn't want to be there, headed for certain humiliation and browbeating, but the Headmaster's wish superseded his desires. He was to see Snape once a week to learn Occlumency, the art of shielding one's mind from penetration, and though Harry harbored doubts as to the validity of this subtle science, he could not argue with its relevance. The Dark Lord was a practiced Legilimens, and there was the high possibility of him slipping into Harry's unpracticed mind. Operating at high risk was nothing new for the boy, but it was the probability of Voldemort's using mind power to manipulate the actions of an adolescent prone to angst and anger against other students that set the Headmaster on edge. He therefore set Potter on his not so merry way to the dungeon office of the resident bat for Occlumency training. Who better to teach The Boy Who Lived the art of slamming down mental walls than The Spy Who Lived and Hated It?

But in the corridor, Harry didn't feel bravery or courage. He didn't feel fortitude or anxiety to learn something new like Hermione would on a mission like this. He felt a bit like Ron when a spider was present. He wanted to squeak in fear and hide behind the nearest gargoyle. As he approached the door that would surely open to more struggle and strife, Harry summoned the last vestiges of courage he could. If anyone could dress him down and make him feel like little more than a child with a superiority complex, it was the Potions Master. That thought alone made him want to turn right around and beg the Headmaster to teach him. The sweat that prickled down the back of his neck in his dank surroundings told him that now was not that time. The hair on his arms stood on end as though in the presence of static electricity; 6:00 was nearly at hand, and there was no keeping the Potions Master waiting. That wouldn't do at all, and though the professor had agreed to take on this extra independent study, that didn't stop his ability to take house points. Harry couldn't afford to lose anymore points than he already had for his house, so he checked over his appearance one last time and cleared his throat of any pubescent cracks before raising his fist and rapping sharply three times at Snape's office door.

"Enter," came the simple reply, and for a second before he turned the handle, Harry felt a shiver down his spine that was born from neither fear nor loathing. It felt a little like cold steel on his back, a delicious chill that rippled through him in the humid and foreboding corridor. It felt a little like he was being watched. He gave a surreptitious glance around him, but finding nothing out of the ordinary, he opened the door and stepped into the office. He closed the door behind him, and it made a muffled click as he walked towards his professor.

The office itself was dark save for a bright reading lantern blazing over Snape's desk. That one light was sufficient enough for Harry to survey his surroundings. The floor was a black marble, and he noticed, cringing at the irony, that the Hogwart's crest was inlaid right in front of the exactly square and substantial desk at which Snape was scribbling comments onto a student's essay. A golden Gryffindor lion rampant on a bed of deepest maroon faced off with a smirking Slytherin serpent emblazoned on a field of emerald, and these rested closest to Snape. The other houses' mascots took a backseat ride to the rivalry embittered between the two houses at the top of the crest.

He didn't risk the smirk that threatened to come to his lips. He looked up and threw a cautionary glance around the room. Snape's office was much like his classroom. It was dark and decorated in a spartan manner with not even an extra chair in front of the desk. There were jars of floating dead things on shelves that seemed to hover, not hang, on the walls, and the smell of mold invaded Harry's nose. It made him itch, and he wondered distractedly if he were allergic. It seemed fitting. If he had an allergy, though, it was probably to the professor and not the mold. Just being in the room was making his skin crawl, and his collar and tie felt two sizes too small. However, he walked slowly forward making it a point to keep his trainers from scraping across the marble. It did not do to dwell on trifles, and it certainly did not do to keep the most punctual professor at Hogwarts waiting unnecessarily.

Cold black eyes lifted from their perusal of the parchment and rested uncomfortably on Harry's face. He had filled out a little since returning to Hogwarts and the decent meals the kitchens afforded him. His face, squared with jaw and a high forehead drawing attention to his lightning-shaped scar, had lost a little of the gaunt look that had made his bones jut in relief. A curious smattering of blue stubble graced his chin and jaws. Upward, along the hairline and slightly to the left, the scar led downward to two brilliantly green eyes that seemed a little less sunken, a little less defeated. "That's good," Snape thought to himself. "At least he won't be battling the Dark Lord looking like the victim of a Muggle concentration camp." He didn't spread the slight encouragement, though, and he said, "Sit." Harry was about to ask where when, with a flick of Snape's dark wand, he was shoved backwards into a chair transfigured from a jar of pickled newt's eyes. It was uncomfortable and felt a bit splintery against him, but he kept his mouth shut until twin leather restraints bound him by the wrists and ankles.

"What are you doing?" he asked, suddenly afraid. What did Occlumency consist of? How was it practiced? He suddenly wished that he had asked Hermione to help him research it in the library, even if it had meant going to ask McGonagall for a pass to the restricted section. But he hadn't had the forethought. He'd been too busy fretting in his own self-pity. Now, it was too late to ask questions. Snape already had him in his grasp and with a smirk, the professor rose from his seat and walked around to the front of the desk, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared down at the young man. His dark hair fell in a curtain across his eyes making his expression unnervingly unreadable.

"What is about to transpire is not pleasant, Potter. It is uncomfortable, exhausting, and challenging. I don't want you suddenly finding yourself incapable of controlling your actions. You might strike me, or worse, grab your wand and hex me unnecessarily. Therefore, I will restrain you for this first lesson to allow you to grow accustomed to the feel of penetration. Now, where is your wand?" Harry saw the briefest quirk of Snape's lips, and with a flush of anger, he realized that his professor would relish having his student defenseless. The infernal Potter would be effectively silenced. There wasn't even the slightest give to the restraints, though for a second, Harry pulled ineffectually at them. Resistance was useless, and he gave up.

"It's in my left trouser pocket," he ground through clenched teeth. A little round muscle near his ear spasmed as he fought to keep his teeth from chattering from fear and anger.

Snape didn't comment. Instead, he leaned forward and flipped up the hem of Harry's robe. He didn't bother to hold it up as he reached underneath and fished around for the pocket. He found it, grasped the wand, and pulled it out. To Harry's fury, he smirked a little wider and flicked the boy's wand. The robe righted itself, and Harry was left red-faced and fuming in the uncomfortable wooden chair. He struggled to keep himself from panting in anger and giving himself away further as if the red face and clenching jaw weren't evidence enough.

"Anger, yes. You will experience a lot of that during the course of this…lesson. As I experience your memories, you will feel me rifling through them. Because humans beings insist on the mental plain as being private property, the anger you feel will mount and continue to mount until it has completely drained you of energy. It is not dark magic, but it will feel like it because these memories can be turned against you. The body knows this, and though it resists, the untrained mind is like an unlocked diary. It waits to be read at will by the observer who happens to find it. Might I suggest that you gather that anger and fortify it with courage, if you have any. Prepare yourself!" Harry had little more than a moment to digest Snape's silky words before the ebony wand pointed between his eyes and the incantation was spoken. "_Legilimens!_" In a flash, memories began to flood from Harry's mind into Snape's wand, swam through his blood, and settled into Snape's sharpened synapses.

Flashes of green light passed through his mind first. He could actually feel the hapless files of memories being opened and thrust onto the floor of his mind. He pictured the dream of his mother falling forward over the crib to save her son and felt the tightening of the death curse on spongy baby bones before waking up in the cupboard under the stairs at the Dursley's. He saw the green ink in McGonagall's spidery script like the ethereal but nearly tangible spots behind the eyelids after staring at the sun too long. He shivered through the night a second time when Hagrid found him in the shack on the stormy lake and felt once again the thrill of knowing, concretely, that he was special.

With a sneer, Snape pulled out of his mind and moved toward him. "You didn't even try to block me."

"You didn't give me the chance!" Harry shouted back. He saw the professor biting back the desire to take points from Gryffindor. The boy was already panting with effort, and Snape didn't want him to give up though he kept his face impassive and injected his next statement with sufficient venom.

"The Dark Lord will not give you a chance to prepare either. Your files are almost too easy to find." Harry jerked his head upward; he thought the files had been a clever metaphor. That's how he pictured his mind, an endless array of tall filing cabinets with large signs on them with dates and subjects. It allowed for easy memory access on his part, but if Snape had seen the files, too, he was most certainly in grave danger. That meant anyone with basic skills could penetrate his mind and see anything they wanted, and a skilled Legilimens could do so without him even feeling it. "Surprised, Potter? I can see your mind as you see it. Do you know what that means?" He leaned forward, bracing himself against the arms of the chair. Harry was face to face with the man he hated most after Voldemort. His black eyes were nearly all pupil, and Harry found himself lost in them. He couldn't answer. If Snape were interrogating him for the Dark Lord, Harry would have failed miserably at all attempts to block his mind from the onslaught. "That means the Dark Lord can too, and I am nearly as accomplished in Legilimency as he is."

Harry swallowed the second lump of the evening in his throat. This one felt as though it were made of lead, and it settled in his stomach like a stone. "What do I do, sir?" he asked meekly, his shuddering body betraying his growing exhaustion, and the hour still had three quarters more to drag onward.

"I was wondering if you'd allow that thick head of yours to do some thinking." Snape straightened and stood at his full height to tower over the seated boy. "You must clear your mind, make it carefully blank and impenetrable. A more astute pupil could show an invented image, something that the Dark Lord wants to see, or he could choose from any array, no matter how disjointed, of experiences, string them together, and form a coherent memory that appears real, and the viewer would be none the wiser. I think, at present, that you should concentrate on making the floor of your mind a blank space. Think nothing. Feel nothing. Clamp down on the penetration that can overtake you if you let it."

"Yes, sir," Harry answered and found he had just enough give in his wrist restraints to grip the arms of the chair. He clutched at the splintery wood until his knuckles were white and shut his eyes.

"Once again, Potter." Harry tensed visibly, his upper body trembling with his grip. "_Legilimens!_" This time, though the floors were slightly less cluttered with filing cabinets, Harry felt Snape travel slightly further before lighting on a cabinet that featured a placard stating, simply, "X-Rated." Snape smirked and wondered what he might find there. In response, the boy struggled to clamp down, to stop his professor from opening the drawer and finding what he desperately wanted to hide, but though he tried, Snape was stronger and was able to snap the boy's defenses as though they were spaghetti noodles about to join boiling water.

Warmth flooded through his chilled body like the spray from a shower, and though his mind screamed at him for leaving this out for someone to find, his body betrayed him with the quickening of his heart and a stir in his groin that shamed and aroused him. There was the unbelievable fantasy he'd experienced when he first noticed Hermione was a girl and not a brain on two legs. He felt the smoothness of her imagined thighs around his hips as he entered her, and he throbbed at the recollection. He felt Snape go a bit deeper, and he uncovered worse. "No!" Harry whimpered hoarsely. It was a dream he'd had midway through his fourth year right after the Christmas ball. He'd seen Hermione with Viktor Krum, and they'd danced their way off the floor and into his unconscious mind. With a shudder, he watched with Snape as the fantasy played itself out. In it, he was sandwiched between the two of them, buried between Hermione's legs and forced downward by Krum's insinuating presence behind him. Snape shifted uncomfortably in the boy's mind and continued hoping against hope that Harry would stop him, shove him out, block the memories. He wasn't sure if they were real or if they were imaginary, but he was sure that, to the boy, they were all the same. Adolescents often had vivid minds, and the imagination could often produce scenes that appeared real especially where sex was involved. Harry felt Snape move onward to a second dream he'd had, and this one had him shoved face first against a wall with an unseen assailant clamping a strong hand over his mouth to stifle his screams. He felt, along with the boy, the expectancy and the fear as the hand on his mouth gripped tighter. There was a rush of air on sweaty legs as his pants were ripped away, the harsh grip of the assailant's free hand on his hip, and the thrust upward that choked boy and professor alike. Within seconds, the dream Harry clamped his teeth on the hand at his mouth and climaxed with a strangled cry. Snape retracted and gasped for air. As he stumbled backward, he just managed to grip the edge of the desk and prop himself on it. He tried to catch his breath. The boy had a vivid imagination, and this did not bode well for future lessons.

Potter had slumped in the chair, unconscious, his chest heaving with effort. "_Ennervate_," Snape said quietly, and Harry stirred.

"Hnh?" Harry said groggily as he came to, his head slumping with the drunkenness of pleasure. He seemed to remember himself, and he snapped back to attention with a look in his eyes that was at once aroused and accusing. "That was personal!" he shouted.

"And the Dark Lord will uncover much worse, I can assure you. He will not hesitate to use your _preferences_," he spat out the word with uncovered distaste, "against you. If you aren't careful, Potter, and he captures you, he'll make sure these dreams will become a reality, and your dreams will pale in comparison to the measures he's willing to take to ultimately betray you. There will be only pain, no pleasure and certainly no release."

Harry squirmed in quickly cooling wetness. He knew that the professor was right, and he'd have to try harder the next time. "But you didn't have to do that during my first lesson!" Harry continued to rage. He couldn't mask his anger; the professor so coolly occupying the edge of the desk in front of him had seen things he hadn't yet told his closest friends. The resulting sneer Snape gave him knew he had overstepped his bounds.

"Ten points from Gryffindor." Snape stood up once again. "Need I remind you that you are in my office on my time, Potter? Or have you conveniently forgotten? I am disappointed in your lack of control. You have only yourself to blame for my invasion of your privacy. If I see anything of that nature again, I will obliviate you myself if only to keep my mind free of your lasciviousness." He pointed his wand at Harry again, who promptly began to tremble with anger and fear.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, his voice carefully neutral.

"You should know, Potter. _Scourgify!_" The sticky wetness disappeared, but the tingly feeling left after climax stubbornly remained. A second later, the restraints dematerialized, and Harry rubbed his hands over his sore wrists. His body was stiff and tense from his attempt to brace himself against Snape's onslaught, but it wasn't nearly as sore as it should have been. He knew what the professor meant now about him attacking. If he'd been free and he'd had his wand, Snape would have ended up crucified on the wall behind his desk which, on closer inspection, was no wall at all but bookshelves that reached all the way to the ceiling. "I expect you here at the same time next week, Potter, and do have a care. That file will be missing when we reconvene. Have I made myself clear?" One eyebrow quirked; Harry knew better than to say anything other than what was expected.

"Abundantly, Professor." He spun on his heels and stalked out of the office, hands clenched at his side. As soon as the door closed, Snape slumped into the chair Harry had just vacated and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with the forefinger and thumb of his right hand.

"Damnable boy," he whispered. He had barely contained how shaken Harry's images had made him, but now the boy was gone, he allowed himself a second look. He did not dwell long on the remnants of Harry's memory. It was quickly and mercifully fading from his mind, but he remembered the bite of the hand, and he shut his eyes to remember it. The hand itself was callused, the palm small and the fingers long, spindly. There was a good chance that, had the image been a real memory, the other man wouldn't have even felt the grip of Harry's teeth through those calluses. It reminded him rather of his own hand, and in a fit of realization, he looked at the hand that would have done the deed. It was free of marks; he was not (yet) the man in Harry's mind.

But the seed had been planted and was now festering. An itch, barely perceptible, nibbled his palm.

There wasn't much left of Harry when he stumbled into the Gryffindor common room. He was so tired that his knees trembled, and he barely made it to the nearest squashy chair. His body still thrummed with pleasure, and the arousal mingled with sleepiness made him feel at once light and heavy. Shaky hands threaded through a shock of unruly black hair and trailed slowly downward until they knocked off the little round glasses on his nose. Within seconds, he was asleep, and the Weasley twins, who found him, carted him off to his room with the other fifth years.

He dreamed, and in that dream, as in every other dream he'd had since the beginning of the school year, he was walking down a corridor, passing doors on either side. He stopped at one of them because the dreams before dictated that he must. It looked familiar, but recognition hovered just out of his grasp. He didn't know why, but standing outside this door, watching light shift through the gaps at the top, bottom, and sides, he began to grow excited again. As his hand reached out to turn the handle, a shiver shuddered through him, and he awoke with a muffled moan. His sheets were wet, and his body was trembling with a second exhausting climax.

"Great. I can't even dream about corridors now," he said dejectedly and wondered how he'd ended up in his bed when he didn't even remember how he'd gotten there. His wand was where he'd always laid it, and he scourgified himself before going back to sleep.


	2. Paralyzed

I realized after I uploaded the first portion of this story that I didn't explain my song/filmfic intentions. In doing so, I probably left a few of you unfairly confused. The first chapter of the story was loosely based on Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta." It just happened to be what I was listening to while I wrote it; therefore, the story contains elements of the song.

This installment is based on Finger Eleven's song "Paralyzer," and a film in which Alan Rickman plays a police interrogator called _Closet Land_. The italicized portion of the text is a manipulation of various scenes depicted in the film.

By way of disclaimer, I would like to say here that I own nothing except, perhaps, a tiny portion of the psyches of these characters, and since I'm a teacher, I will give credit where it is due. Harry Potter and all others within the Hogwarts universe are licensed, copyrighted products of J.K. Rowling's mind, and _Closet Land _ is property of the writer, Radha Bharadwaj, and Imagine Entertainment.

Paralyzed

"Mr. Potter!" Snape's voice rang in his ears, and Harry snapped to attention. He'd drifted off while listening to his Potions lecture. Satisfied with the reaction he got, Snape approached him. "Will you kindly pay attention?" The word "kindly" did not sound like a request as it would in any other form such as, "Would you kindly pass me the potatoes?" Even the word "kindly" bent to his will, and Snape wasn't asking for potatoes. He strode over to the seat Harry shared with Ron and leaned over him like a snarling wolf about to attack its prey.

"Yes, sir," Harry replied. He looked up into Snape's eyes and felt the desire to fall into them. It was easy to ignore his tirades if you concentrated on his eyes. The blackness swallowed everyone; there was no light in there.

"Then I suggest you sit up and get your quill moving."

"Yes, sir." Snape turned and walked away, his robes fluttering around him as he made his way back to the front of the room. Harry had just enough time to adjust himself on the hard chair in which he sat and to dip his quill in his inkpot.

He'd been thinking about the fantasy Snape had seen. It was strange. There was no voice, no hurried caresses. There was the shove, and then there was the cold stone against his face. There wasn't even a second to ask what was going on, and he couldn't have anyway. A short-palmed, long-fingered hand held his mouth silent while the other hand unbuttoned and unzipped the jeans he wore. The other man did not hesitate, and he didn't ask any questions. Harry got the distinct impression that the other man was raping him, but he couldn't find it in his thoughts, waking or sleeping, to be disturbed about it. The scene even reminded him of one of his favorite films, and he often imagined that the dream lover, when he dreamed about him, was Alan Rickman from _Closet Land_. His mind drifted there now as his hand scribble comments on his parchment:

**Potted plants are not…sometimes do not yield uniform results. Learn 6 properties of the mind-skipping potion. Created from aloe vera and dragonfish scales. Centers thoughts…something about fast-forwarding through events in the mind. Ask Hermione. Aloe vera is a plant with slick, sticky pulp. Spiky leaves.**

**Aloe vera, the violent plant.**

He snickered to himself and continued writing. The sound of quills scratching along parchment filled the air, and as hard as Harry tried to stay focused on the lecture, the sound of writing melded with the silky texture in Snape's voice lulled him into a dream-like stupor a second time. This time, he relived his fantasy, filling in the gaps with Rickman's form and a little plot, and the effect was much better than even the clarity of the wet dreams he'd had.

_"Do you know why you're here, AB 234?" the interrogator asked. Harry looked up at him with fear in his eyes._

_"No, sir," he answered. The interrogator sneered, and his mouth quirked on one side. "I don't know why I'm here, sir." Harry tugged at the handcuffs on his wrists. The interrogator smirked a little wider even as he stood and moved behind the chair where Harry sat. He placed his rough hands on his shoulders and squeezed until the boy gave a small cry out, a whimper in the harsh light reverberating through the white columned room._

_"You're here because you wrote seditious libel about the government. You're here because you refuse to confess, to sign this paper. Come clean, AB 234. Tell me you're guilty. My vices are your verses, and if you don't tell me, I'm going to use a vice against you that perhaps you might have liked on the outside, but here, there are only screams. There are only screams and confessions. You will confess, AB 234." He squeezed Harry's shoulder tighter, and the boy cried louder, lips curling over his teeth in pain, the sounds echoing like footsteps in a dank, lichen-covered corridor._

_"I have nothing to confess," Harry gasped through clenched teeth. The hands released his shoulder and grabbed his head, pulling his hair and tugging insistently backward._

_"You may have nothing to confess now," the silky voice spoke next to his ear. "You will have plenty to confess when I decide to wring it from you."_

_"They're lies!" Harry roared, and the interrogator let go._

_"Yes, lies. But even lies have small threads of truth hidden within them. You will confess. Sign your life away, but for now, trust me. Give me your words, and I will mold them. I am your teacher, your philosopher, and your guide. I must break your body to break your mind, and trust me, AB 234, your body and your mind will be sufficiently broken."_

_"I will not confess." The hand that held his hair gripped the back of his neck and shoved him forward, ramming his face into the granite table in front of him. The sharp edge of it caught his cheek; Harry felt it split and blood begin to run. The hand shoved him backward, and he looked into the interrogator's eyes, but they weren't amber as they should have been. They were black, nearly all pupil. Harry was losing himself in them, and the room, with its triangular corners and colonnaded, convoluted escapes, was swimming before his eyes. He couldn't focus. Blood blurred his vision, and his glasses lay broken at his feet._

_"You will confess."_

_"I will not confess."_

_"You will confess."_

_"I will not confess!" Harry raised his head and looked at the man._

_"Pity. Clearly, fame isn't everything. Fame won't get you out of here, AB 234. Until you confess, you belong to no one. You are nothing, not even a speck of dirt on my boot that I wish to remove. Not even the smoke that blows from my mouth when I tell you that we've already captured your mother and father."_

_"My father and mother are dead," Harry struggled to get out. His throat was dry and raw with screaming, and his head ached._

_"How do you know? You could have hallucinated their deaths. You could be hallucinating now. Perhaps you don't recognize your guilt, but we do. Confess."_

_"I will not confess." A hand cuffed him hard against the cheek._

_"Then you leave me no choice, AB 234." A strong hand grabbed the back of Harry's shirt and jerked him up out of the poorly cushioned chair. It was a steel frame with masking tape all over it. It provided some cushion and support, but mostly, it was an uncomfortable chair, and Harry's legs liked the stretch even as the interrogator shoved him forward to one of the walls in the dark. His bare feet padded along the floor, the cold stone jolting him back to where he was until the interrogator pushed him hard enough to knock him over._

_He landed on the floor. Blood and spittle ran away from his mouth and exploded into a spray that fell back on his bruised cheek._

_"I could give you a barbecue, AB 234, like we do to prisoner XYZ, but I wouldn't enjoy that very much. Stand up." Harry struggled to move and only succeeded in moving a couple of inches. The rough hand gripped him again and shoved him into the wall. "I said, 'Stand up.'" The interrogator splayed him against the wall, frisking style, head pressed against the stone and legs spread behind him._

_There was a moment of eager and shameful anticipation as the interrogator unlocked the handcuffs and shoved Harry's hands into the wall on either side of his head. "Do not move," the silky voice warned._

_"Yes, sir," Harry answered. The interrogator's free hand snaked down his body and unbuttoned and unzipped the jeans the boy was wearing. They were so oversized that once they were undone, they fell down his thin legs. He felt, but didn't see, a knife that traced gently, almost lovingly, up the back of his thigh and ripped, with a sharp sound, the fabric of his grey briefs. The sound of the knife dropping to the marble floor shattered through the tensing silence, and the interrogator's left hand slithered up Harry's body and clamped down over his mouth._

_The coolness of the wall on his cheek drove his mind away from the sound of spitting, but he was still shocked when the first thrust tore into him. He couldn't scream, but he didn't really want to. There was too much else going on for him to care about the pain. Attempting to grab hold of the wall like he would have a sheet, Harry broke one nail, and then, with a cry and unexpected shudder, he bit down on the hand at his mouth and came until he collapsed._

_"That's one, Mr. Potter…"_

Harry came to with a jump and a barely suppressed groan. Snape was staring directly at him. "Should we go for two?"

"Pardon me, sir?" Harry ventured. Girlish titters swept through the classroom.

"Silence!" Snape shouted. He bent forward until his forehead was nearly touching Harry's. "I told you not to lose yourself in the clouds, Potter, and you've managed to disobey me and miss the assignment. You lost twenty points from your house, and you have one night of detention. Shall we make it two?" Harry flushed with anger and embarrassment, but he managed to look ashamed.

"No, sir," he said.

"Then I expect you to turn in double the assignment of the other students. Two feet of parchment instead of one, and I want it handed in tomorrow morning before breakfast." There was a huff and a blast of cool air as Snape turned from Harry the second time.

There were only five minutes left in the class, and he closed his book to rest his head on his hands. Snape had a way of interrupting the final release; whatever afterglow he'd hoped for disappeared when the professor started yelling at him. He felt like a poorly made soufflé: too dry, overcooked, and deflated. A look beside him showed Ron staring at him with fearful blue eyes. Harry said nothing. He didn't want to risk Snape's wrath a third time, so when the professor dismissed them, he was the first out of his chair.

"You stay, Potter," Snape growled. Harry was rooted to the spot. The classroom emptied out leaving him alone with the dungeon bat.

Stationary from his vantage point at the front of the classroom, Snape watched the boy's face flush red with embarrassment and frustration. He smirked to himself and crossed his arms over his chest. "Come forward," he said in a softly commanding tone. Harry turned, dropped his books on the desk, and started forward to where the professor stood.

He moved stiffly as though he were under the Imperius curse. As he passed through the high windows opened to let in sufficient light for note-taking, the sunlight skimmed over his youthful body, and Snape was forced into recognizing that the boy in front of him, despite all efforts to think otherwise, was a sexual creature. His dip into Harry's mind the night before had proved to him that he wasn't dealing with a mere boy. This child came equipped with the body of a near-man, and along with that body, there came urges, power, and desire. Even Snape would be amiss if he didn't acknowledge the effect adolescence was having on the arrogant spawn of James Potter, and he was infuriated with the realization that adulthood was being kind to him. The boy in front of him was going to be tall and slender, yes, but broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped, and innocently handsome. There was no other way to describe it. For all of his suffering, for all of his thrust forward into a war that had raged before he was even born, he was naïve and green like a switch that bent with pressure instead of snapping. That was promising. At least he was able to be molded.

His steps as they made their way to the front of the classroom were stunted and stumpy. It was as though he were being slowly paralyzed, and his body was responding. His feet moved slower and slower until he stood about two feet away from the Potions Master who was oddly silent and reflective. He wore a trademark sneer, but his mouth, besides the slight glint of crooked teeth, was shut. But in the shadow where Snape rested, Harry was able to get a better look at him. He'd never really studied him before. He was taller than Harry, but he was a little heavier. His body was meant to be broad, but it was chastened into a smaller form. Self-discipline and denial had obviously made the man. Beyond that, though, Harry found himself once again drifting toward the forbidden arena of the fantasy. He tossed his head to one side to clear it, and when he looked up his glasses were slightly askew on his straight, sharp nose. Couldn't he be sedate for a few minutes? Especially when staring directly at the professor.

"I shouldn't have to tell you how disappointed I am. If you cannot control even your daydreams, how can you ever expect to control other areas of your mind?"

"I don't know, sir," Harry answered. He looked down at the scuffed toes of his trainers trying desperately to forget where he was, to forget what was going through his head for he had begun thinking of Alan Rickman as the interrogator and as himself as the slightly tortured victim. Snape saw the flush creeping along the infernal boy's neck and wordlessly penetrated his mind to find the boy beginning to fall under the influence of an even more vivid fantasy than the one from the night before. He retracted and managed not to let Harry feel it, but he was reeling. He couldn't remember spending so much time aroused at the boy's age, and he was nearly sickened by the fact that he could see the boy being beaten. He didn't like Potter, that much was given, but he also knew that if Voldemort broke him, it would be in a similar manner. If dream Harry didn't confess, his real counterpart probably would. There was no questioning the levels to which the Dark Lord would stoop to get the information he wanted, and Harry was only human. In the end, everyone confessed regardless of guilt.

"In addition to your extra assignment, I want you to find at least five reasons why you should keep your mind clear at all times. Blazing emotions are no substitute for righteous passion. Though you may think differently, you will find that once your anger has subsided, you're left with little but grief." He kept his face carefully neutral, but a burst of sunshine lit on the blackness of his eyes and showed at least a little life there. While there was no telltale trace of emotion to suggest more than life to Harry, Snape found himself hard-pressed to keep his own grief from showing.

"Yes, sir," Harry replied.

"You may go," he said simply and waved his hand dismissively. Harry didn't move. "Well, Mr. Potter? I have essays to grade and my privacy to entertain. Will you kindly," there was that word again, "show yourself out." It wasn't a question or a request, and even if it had been, it probably would have come out more like a command anyway.

"Sir, I was wondering…" Harry started as Snape moved around his desk and seated himself.

"I do not have time for petty what-ifs and adolescent drivel," the professor growled. He bent his head and set to work reading parchments.

"I just wanted to apologize," Harry began. Snape shot him a venomous look, and Harry felt his stomach turn. Tension was thick like humidity in the air. "I wanted to apologize for what you saw last night, and you won't be seeing those things again."

"Like I said, Potter, I do not have time for the musings of an adolescent who barely knows enough about the world to be relegating his fantasies to such…brutal fare." There was a sneer, and then there was a silky purr. "Perhaps, Mr. Potter, you should stumble across Knockturn Alley again. There are plenty of venues for you to practice your predilections." And then Harry burned with rage again.

"I tried to apologize! I'm sorry for what you saw. It was embarrassing for you and for me." He was yelling, but he couldn't stop himself. "I just wanted you to understand!" Snape stood up so quickly from his chair that it fell backward with a clatter.

"You know nothing, Potter! The Dark Lord will use you. Anyone could be the instrument of your demise, and if he knows that you're interested in the stronger sex, he'll twist and warp you until all that's left is a shell. He'll draw you in with your curiosity and make you howl with pain. You will confess to deeds you've not done. You will implicate your friends in crimes in which they were in no way involved. Don't you understand this has nothing to do with you? This is the whole world of which we speak, Potter, and it revolves around a sniveling, probably bisexual, tart of a boy who can't control his thoughts for more than a few seconds. If you can't see what I see, then your glasses were poorly prescribed." Snape slapped his hand on the desk for effect. The sound jolted through the boy, and he looked up at his professor shaking with rage. "Do not apologize for your actions. Fix them," and without a word, Snape moved around to the front of the desk, dragged Harry through the room, shoved his books in his hand, and poked him once, hard, in the pectorals to shove him out the door. "Do not come back to me with these excuses. Come back with something I can use."

The door slammed in Harry's face.

Snape pressed himself against the door daring Harry to try again. But he was shaken, panting slightly with the amount of effort it had taken not to blast the pinheaded pipsqueak out the window and all the way to the Quidditch fields. He heard the rubber sound of trainers as they stepped towards the door. Potter was trying to think up a witty retort, but he obviously decided not to do so. A second later, the sneakers screeched down the corridor and out of the dungeons.

Harry, on the other hand, was enraged. He wanted to go back to Snape's classroom, shove him into a desk, and rail on him until he felt better. But the student cannot school the teacher, and as much as he hated to admit it, Snape had a point. As he walked, he dropped his head in contemplation. What could he do to wipe his mind? What could he do to make his mind as blank as the sheaves of parchment in his rucksack? He didn't have a clear answer, but he was certain of one thing: his mind would be carefully void of X-rated files when he returned Monday next for his Occlumency training. He couldn't afford another outburst of Snape's hot displeasure.

"Greasy git," Harry murmured to himself. In his mind, though, a war was raging. Part of him was meekly trying to reason out why he'd attempted to apologize in the first place. He'd known better even as the words left his mouth, but he couldn't stop himself. He'd felt compelled to offer some condolences to the sarcastic and cynical professor. The other part of him was just as angry at Snape. How dare he insinuate that Harry thought himself the great hope of the wizarding world? It was a title he'd never wanted to begin with. To be landed with celebrity and fame he'd never imagined in his tiny cupboard under the stairs was unnerving at best and infuriating at worst.

As he approached the Gryffindor portrait, he tried to think up some logical reason as to why Snape would even care about the apology, and deep in his psyche, a little voice answered and it said, "Because you want to please him." He stopped, still, his hand slightly raised in the act of making a step.

"Password, please," the Fat Lady intoned. Harry said nothing, but his mind was working furiously. "Password, please," the Fat Lady repeated steadily becoming annoyed. Harry remained still. "Password!"

And Harry, finally paying attention, glared at the portrait and spoke, "_Ex cruce leo_." The portrait swung open, and the Fat Lady gave a disdainful sniff as Harry walked through ignoring all calls from Ron and the twins as he made his way silently up to the fifth year boys' room. There was something he desperately needed to see.

He kicked through the refuse stubbornly littering the pathway from the door to his trunk, and he thrust it open with a blast from his wand. He dug through the piles of clean underwear and socks until he found it, the VHS he managed to nick from his uncle's forbidden pile. It was a copy of _Closet Land._ Uncle Vernon hadn't like the film; he thought it was too full of propaganda, but Harry loved it. He'd watched it one afternoon while his aunt and uncle and their whale of a son were out. He'd fallen in love with Alan Rickman then, and as he looked at the back of the VHS jacket, he managed a startled gasp. Snape looked an awful lot like Alan Rickman, and it was easy to replace the form of the interrogator in the fantasy with a tall, slender dungeon bat with black robes, long, lank, black hair, and a piercing, cold gaze. This complicated matters a little, and now, more than ever, Harry was determined to stop Snape from seeing his fantasy again.

The door to the dormitory burst open, and Harry dropped the tape in surprise. He turned to see Ron approaching him. "Bloody hell, Harry. I thought Snape was going to make a potion ingredient of you." With a flick of the wand, his trunk righted its contents and shut with a click.

"No, but he certainly made me feel like one."

"What?"

"As though I were a bottle of something useless on one of his shelves." Harry swallowed. "As though I were a horrible addition to a complicated potion that he despised making." Ron's eyebrows were raised so high, they'd disappeared beneath his shaggy mop of bright red hair.

"I never thought I'd hear you enumerating philosophies on Snape's motivation," Ron said with his mouth hung open. Harry smiled.

"Ever hear of Alan Rickman?"


	3. Headstrong

I said this was going to be a song/filmfic. I lied. It's actually a song/film/litfic. It sounds more complicated than it actually is, but I couldn't help myself. This chapter is based on Trapt's "Headstrong." The first long quote is by Henry Beston, and I found it in a book by Richard Ellis called _The Empty Ocean_. The other is actually a direct excerpt of the last stanza in Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach." I couldn't resist using literature. Be forewarned for later chapters – I'll probably dig up more from other favorite authors.

I have decided to scrap Rowling's whining, wimpy Harry at the beginning of _Order of the Phoenix_ and replace him with an introspective version of the youth because I like Harry better as a reflective person. He tends to be a little too hot-blooded and rash for me, so I made him into a bit of a philosopher.

Once again, I own nothing. These characters are the property of J.K. Rowling.

Headstrong

The warmth of the afternoon was quickly fading into the chill of an autumn evening. There was a crispness in the air; it felt brittle as though a voice would splinter through and render the day tainted and useless. As Harry made his way down to the lake, a book at arm's length swinging at his side as he walked, he began to reflect on the quiet. It was the sort of day that seemed to be fashioned from the thinnest veil of crystal, the kind of autumn day that lingers in the memory as blazing leaves of color and solemn skies so blue, only water could come close to their clarity. However, the feeling was fleeting. So many distractions floated through the air and threatened to crack the delicate, glassy surface. A word spoken without heed could thrust through the calm. A graceless action like tripping over a tree root or the strings of one's trainers left ruffled bubbles that slowly rose to the plain and popped leaving ugly pock marks.

Harry was determined to make the feeling last in these two and a half hours he had before reporting back to Snape for his weekly Occlumency lesson. He'd asked Ron not to tag along, and Hermione was locked away somewhere in the library. This afternoon would be spent alone beneath a tree whose grave and welcome company would hopefully calm him enough to walk into the office where fortitude had failed him the week before. In order to accomplish his goal, he'd walked out of the front doors of the castle, feeling as though he were sneaking out beneath Umbridge's watchful eyes, and crossed the grasses to a favorite rocky sitting area.

Once there, he sank carefully to a seated position and crossed his legs in front of him. He rested his back against a gnarled and somewhat silvery trunk behind him. He flipped through the pages of his book, but he wasn't really in the mood to read. He just wanted the quiet, a place far removed from the tasks of OWL-level homework, the burning detentions with the Dark Arts "teacher," and the inane chatter Ron had offered him lately. Where he sat, though, there were no unwarranted distractions, and thinking he should at least attempt to read, he picked up his book and the following lines, beneath a picture of a serpent, forced their way into his mind: "We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, we greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complex than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth."

He shut the book and shifted uncomfortably beneath the tree. The solitude was broken, and the guilty party was Harry's own mind.

A chilly wind picked up and blew over the lake. Waves stirred and lapped towards the shore, and for the first time since he came to Hogwarts, Harry wanted to be as far away from the beloved castle as he could get. He'd wanted to escape the thoughts of Snape and Occlumency, but he'd stumbled across something that forced him to reconsider understanding the greasy git. The quote had connected a few distant fibers in his being, and with a sudden burst of understanding comparable to the discovery of the Snape/Rickman phenomenon (as it had come to be called) he realized that the author didn't necessarily mean just animals were far removed from humans. Humans could be very far removed from other humans, too. Swelling through his brain now were swirling mists of greenish smoke, and from them rose the profile of one hooked-nosed, sallow-faced, greasy-haired potions master. It didn't take long to surrender to the thoughts that swept over him.

That Snape wasn't a normal human being was no stretch of the imagination for Harry. It wasn't even difficult for him to see his professor as a separate sub-species if he considered that, by way of distinction, most people had love in some capacity to soften life's misfortunes. He found he could even forgive the Master his unconventional classroom demeanor and distance from his students. If he factored in that Snape labored as a spy, however dubious, for the Order and as a spy also for the Death Eaters, it was easy for Harry to make the slip towards idealizing him, and that wasn't something the boy wanted to do. For the ideal was very far removed from the man just as the man was very far removed from any scrap of humanity he may have once laid claim to. It reminded him of Matthew Arnold and the end of "Dover Beach."

"Ah, love, let us be true to one another! for the world, which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new, hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; and we are here as on a darkling plain swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night," he said aloud.

In his mind, he was now equating the words of the previous author with Arnold's. There was no explaining Snape's attitude save for one argument that had begun to wiggle its way in where the profile of the professor now stood in terrifying relief in Harry's brain. The Order and the Death Eaters were at war, and they were both ignorant. Both sides were fighting for dominance in a world that meant little save for the creatures living there, and the creatures, like nations, held sovereign sway over their own counties but offered little in ways of international diplomacy. Considering that human beings are vain and tend to harm others unintentionally within their webs of relationships, it wasn't difficult to see that Snape had the hardest job of it: he wasn't on a "side." There was no black or white for him. There was only a sea of grey that stifled him into two extremes: selfless and selfish. Good and evil, God and devil, were words of little importance to the professor, and this Harry learned with a shock that traveled through him until he looked up into the face of the setting sun.

"The ideal, then," Harry started, "is an idea that wishes to simplify reality when in the actual world, there is nothing simple, only complexity." In a moment, he found absolute peace. Nothing existed beyond that thought, and his comfort stemmed from the understanding that he would never simplify his life. It would always be complicated, but there were, and always could be, moments of intense beauty and light. Those things he needed to reach for, but the professor refused such things. The professor wanted only the complexity. It made him forget his own guilt.

He let the book fall from his hand, and he stood up. Gravel scattered around him as he stepped towards the lake, rested his hands on his hips, and offered the sun his revelation. "I want to please him not because I idolize him but because I recognize his depth of character, his sacrifice, his damnation. It would mean more to me if he praised me than if Dumbledore did because Dumbledore has no such decisions to make. Snape has to decide what to say to both sides. What will help the most, what will hurt the most, these are the lines he struggles with. He is a separate nation which is inexorably bound with me to the completion of this war. Regardless of which side wins, he will be honored by both, but he will accept praise from neither. This was the easiest way for him, and it offers a split, in halves, of his mind. He is a perfectly fashioned creature that does not control what happens, but he holds the outcome of this in his hands."

Harry swallowed hard. Expostulating, from the opposite of his mind was a voice who was quickly losing force, and it shouted at him: "Are you mad? He would sooner betray you than love you! He wants you to lose; he wants you to whimper with the last sounds of your defeat. You know this, yet you have the nerve to virtually acquit him of all sensible charges with this filth of an argument. Even if he is Dumbledore's man, there still lingers the possibility that he doesn't want to see you win against Voldemort. The very real probability is that he would rather see you die and then take the honor of killing the "Serpent King" himself."

"Then he can have it," Harry said softly. He turned, picked up the book from its place beneath the tree, and began walking towards the castle. It didn't matter at this point what Snape's motivations were. If Harry could rid himself of the stigma he carried as The Boy Who Lived, he would be eternally grateful. He would give almost anything to lose the magnanimous responsibility of freeing the wizarding world from evil. He didn't want to be a savior; he wanted to be Harry, just Harry.

His feet crunched over fallen leaves littering the way from the lake's edge back to the castle. Head dropped in contemplation, he wished for an escape better than the shoreline and a book. He wished for Quidditch and wizard's chess. He wished, desperately, for a fantasy to steal his mind away and become real so he could forget, for more than a few minutes, that he was the reason Voldemort had been weakened, that he was the reason so many deaths had stopped, and evil was, for a time, squashed under the premise that goodness and love, sugar and spice, were all-conquering quantities. But for the moment, Harry felt none of those things. He felt small, an ant crawling up a huge and desolate hill where, on either side, faces sneered offering nothing but jeers and cajolery. He was an instrument being finely honed and manipulated to meet the face of reckoning in the form of an evil man likened only to Hitler, a man who hated desperately the things he could not be and the things he already was. Both were masters of internalized hatred that had eaten away at them. The difference was Voldemort was a wizard; he didn't need armies or death camps to instill fear and terror. He need only raise his hand and the whole world fell silent.

Harry was not comforted by these thoughts, but another voice, the voice that had led him down the pathway of finding Snape's "good" side, lifted and dropped a small piece of ambrosia on his plate. "Please the master and learn the skills he wishes of you, and you'll have a better chance of succeeding. You will also find that his complexity reveals itself to you. He feigns simple, but you know simple. He has equipped himself with convoluted and chaotic testimony that cannot pick a side; therefore, his world revolves around treachery and the removal of his neck from the guillotine. The winning party has a loyal servant; the losing side has a veritable Judas prepared with a poison on his mouth that tastes so sweet, you can't stop kissing it."

His task, then, was to prove that Snape's labors were not in vain. If Harry could show that he was at least willing to try to the point of complete bodily exhaustion, the professor might lean a little further toward the side that needed his treachery most.

With a slight smile, Harry continued toward the castle with a little more lightness in his heart. Recognizing his place within the machine was enough for him to realize that there was no reason to forget he had a job to do. Losing himself in philosophies wasn't a bright idea. He could write a book about it when he finished what he had been sent to Hogwarts to do. There was an Occlumency lesson and a Dark Lord to thwart awaiting him in the dungeons, and if he didn't hurry his feet along, he was going to be late. Snape was not a fan of tardiness, and his anger from the week before had leaked into this Monday. As per usual, he'd managed to blunder through his Potions classes and lose more points from his professor, but he'd also managed to make nearly perfect marks on his two feet of parchment. That was a first even the Potions Master was shocked over. If he held onto the shreds of hope of ever learning to be an Occlumens, he could probably convince Snape, at least on some level, that he wasn't, at least not really, an Idiot Boy.

Determined now, he focused on the memory of receiving his graded essay. It was the last parchment in the pile, and with a smirk that spoke more of chagrin rather than pride, Snape had called his name, "Potter!" He approached the desk with a nervous tingle wavering through him. "If you'd focus like this more often, your grades would be a little less deplorable."

"Thank you, sir." Snape scoffed and shoved the parchment back in his hands. At the top of the sheet was a single word: 'acceptable.' Beside that word was a grade. Harry's eyes had opened in surprise as he shuffled back to his desk. Handing the paper over to Ron didn't relieve any of the shock. He was just as baffled.

"Blimey, Harry," he'd whispered just low enough not to rouse Snape's ever-working ears, "not even Hermione gets marks like that." And for a second, Harry was proud.

Mounting the steps into the castle and striding through the archway helped him feel a little happier. There was an indescribable emotion roiling through him, and he was delighted to find that it was confidence. That would certainly make the lesson interesting, and with a smile and a light chuckle, he rounded the corner and made his way into the Great Hall for dinner.

Whatever confidence he'd managed to feel was gone by the time he'd made his way to the lair of the elusive dungeon bat, but he was determined to impress the professor at least once. He drummed up his shrinking conviction, screwed up his features into what felt like a face of single-minded resolve, and knocked on the arched doorway in front of him. The silky voice spoke, "Enter," and once again, Harry felt the tremulous fingers of arousing shivers that skipped down his spine. It felt again like he were being watched, but a cursory glance proved nothing out of the ordinary, and he walked into the office.

Snape was there, elbows resting on his desk, fingers templed before him, and the fear Harry harbored for the man came back in a stunning moment of nervousness and uncertainty. Looking into his cold, black gaze, Harry tried to summon the moment of realization he'd experienced by the lake, but all he could see was a man who reeked of dark magic and citrus with hints of basil. He forced himself not to tremble, and for a moment, he felt some semblance of quietude and calm.

"I'm here, sir," Harry said while forcing conviction into his voice.

"I can see that, Potter." He stood up and walked around the desk, staring down with distaste and discomfort at the boy. "I trust I haven't the need to tell you that what I said last week still stands. If I see anything untoward, I will not hesitate to obliviate you, and if I see so much as a hint of your vices, I will unhinge your mind myself."

"Yes, professor," Harry said, licking his lips to give his mouth something else to do besides chatter his teeth together.

"Very well." He waved his wand and a metal support transfigured behind him from a box of miscellaneous dried body parts. "Place your wand in the back pocket of your trousers." Harry did so and felt two, cold bars raise up under his arms with knobbed grips at the end of each for him to hang onto. He grabbed them and looked up expectantly into the professor's eyes. The support was cold against his body even though he was dressed, and he suspected, but did not voice, that Snape had probably charmed the iron maiden-like device to stay frigid.

"Professor, will it help if I pictured an event in my head that I wouldn't mind you seeing?" Snape lowered his eyebrows and glared at Harry. "I mean, if that was the only thing I brought to the front of my mind, that would be the only thing you'd see, right?"

"No. I would still be able to move about at will, but it would be more difficult. The extent of the penetration leans heaviest on the desires of the Legilimens performing the act. If he or she wants to see more than the proffered images, especially if there is even a hint of a suspicion, there is no stopping it. All other areas of the mind must be closed for the image you choose to be the only object the seeker of knowledge sees."

In response, Harry shut his eyes tightly and gripped the handles, which reminded him a of Atari joysticks, a little tighter. He heard the smirk and chuckle, and he could picture them in his mind better, even, than the mark on his potions essay. It came as no surprise, then, that when Snape whipped his wand through the air with a slight whistle and shouted the word, "_Legilimens!_" the first thing he saw was the smirk Harry had pictured in his head.

Harry's hands were already beginning to cramp with strain as Snape began his onslaught. The professor, satisfied that he wouldn't find anything unseemly at the forefront of his pupil's mind, began to move further into the recesses of the boy's mind. He felt the gravel underneath him, sitting by the lake, legs crossed in front of him, felt him stand and address a non-entity, though he could not hear or understand the words he knew were being spoken. There was the unbelievable tug of something niggling its way into Harry's mind, the moment when the boy understood Snape was at work for himself, serving a purpose greater than either camp combined. That nagging flowered into a thought that surprised him. It was a juxtaposition of his face next to someone else, another man, who shared his features but not his lank, black hair and dark, carefully masked eyes. The other man looked almost handsome, and he felt the clench in Harry's abdomen as he stared at them before going deeper.

"Concentrate, Potter. Focus." He spoke the words softly, not really an encouragement but not really a disparaging remark, either. There came a grunt in reply and a barely concealed shudder of exhaustion and pain.

"Yes, sir," he ground through clenched teeth. His legs were giving way beneath him, and his arms struggled to hold him up. Veins were beginning to stand out beneath the flesh from exertion. His trainers slid across the floor as he tried desperately to hang on, but Snape's wand never wavered. He couldn't escape unless he collapsed, and he'd already promised himself he would be as determined as possible so as to at least attempt to please the professor.

Snape smirked with sadistic pleasure. Yes, let the boy beg for mercy and receive nothing by way of praise. There was too much hero worship surrounding him already. Let him be humbled a little. Let him feel the scourge of helplessness; let him feel the glory of final surrender.

As Snape ventured still further in Harry's mind, he saw scraps of the fantasy, but they were disjointed and carefully concealed. He smirked to himself. The boy took him seriously, and that was well enough for the professor. But as he moved closer and closer to a point on which he could concentrate and perceive a single memory in its entirety, he noticed something strange: a pathway flashed before him, and he, being deterred from everything else, turned and followed the way until he stopped in front of his own desk in his classroom. He watched as Harry's memory played to completion. Apparently, receiving a decent mark in potions was enough to burn itself as a touchstone moment in his mind forever. He retracted from Harry's memory to find the boy barely hanging on, and as he slipped from consciousness, Snape felt something akin to compassion though he chose not to wear it on his face. Potter's eyes were shut; therefore, he only thought he felt strong arms grab him and lower him gently to the floor.

There was nothing but blackness, a blank space before his eyes as he sank deeper into oblivion. It was the release he'd wished for earlier when he wanted Quidditch and chess. Instead of flying about on his broom, he was dangling, weightless, in a calm, quiet sea that reflected his thoughts. There was nothing else to do or to be in this ocean. He didn't even have to float. Suspended by little more than a thread of thought and the needle that strung it together with others provided enough buoyancy to cushion him. Beneath him, like a television screen, events from his life were playing out, but his mind was blissfully free of them. They supported him, and that was sufficient. Knowing that they were extensions of his deepest feelings and desires helped him understand that they were more a part of him than all of the various subjects he was trying to assimilate. Those subjects would always be removed from him even if he understood them, but here, in the dusky twilight of his own mind, he felt very close to a spirit that connected him to everyone in his life. He saw, like the bright light of dawn peeking through the mouth of a cave, the realization that not even with love comes complete understanding. Groaning now in waking, his philosophical musings about Snape came back full force, and with a flutter, Harry's eyes opened.

A fuzzy image of the professor took over his vision, and he tried to make it focus. It was no use, and when he reached up, he found that his glasses had been removed. He sat up slowly, his body tense and sore, his head hurting. There was blood pounding in his temples, and stinging pain tore through his scar. He rubbed it idly; he knew better than to try to assuage it. A small, pitiful groan came from his throat.

Swimming in front of him a second later were his glasses. He snatched at them, trying to make sure he had his grip on the correct object, then he put them on. His mouth was dry and raw from keeping it closed too tight in a half-swallow. His chest heaved, trying to catch his breath. "You pushed me too far," he croaked. Snape let out an undignified snort as he watched the boy attempt to stand.

"You pushed yourself. You could have told me to stop." He didn't comment further though he knew he would have kept going regardless of Potter's pleas. There was more of the sadist in him than he wanted to realize. "Don't try to stand for a few minutes."

Harry gave up and sat still, legs splayed apart in front of him and his hands trembling. He was at once nauseated and hungry. Supper had long disappeared, and he wondered, idly, how many calories were burned by a mental onslaught one was attempting to block. Looking up at Snape, who was very practiced at the art, he seemed to understand. It was harder to block the mind threatening to enter than it was to actually enter. Snape's lean frame showed him just how much harder it was. Even with practice, Harry was sure it was difficult.

A little less weak, he slowly rose to his feet and installed himself back in the contraption behind him, gripping the handles and trying to stifle the shudders still ripping through him. "Enough, Potter. Get out of my office," Snape said coldly. Potter didn't want a second warning, so he started to walk through the door.

"Was it better, professor?" Harry asked.

"It was still unacceptable."

"Oh," the student replied and left the office, closing the door behind him.

Snape looked down at his hands, the hands that had reacted before he could stop them. As Potter began to slump, he'd rushed in and held him up, had even laid him on the floor without jarring him. What was he thinking? Where was the anger that had made him want the boy to beg? With a toss of his long hair and a grunt of disapproval, Snape transfigured the iron maiden back into its original form before replacing it on one of his innumerable shelves. But a stripe of malicious anger burned through him. Compassion.

He sneered. Compassion was useless frivolity. It did little but confuse and cause chaos. As he had with Harry, though, his hands reacted before his mind could stop them. A well-placed right jab shattered a glass jar of shark liver oil. Blood and fishy oil poured onto the shelf and consequently to the floor. It reeked of fish and would make him smell uncannily like tuna for weeks, but he felt better. The pain righted his mind, and the mess made him focus on something other than this latest episode with his student. With pain came a sense of grounding. He felt like his feet were once again rooted firmly on the earth. He was no longer shifting madly between compassionate and compassionless. If he had transformed, even for mere seconds, from his carefully constructed façade of loveless dungeon bat into a creature who cared, it no longer showed.

Harry heard the glass break from the end of the dungeon corridor. He didn't go back to the office, but he imagined there would be a new scar on Snape's hand the next day.


	4. Driven

This chapter took a long time to write, but now that it's finished, I can move on to bigger, better scenes. For instance, next chapter, I'll be dealing with a distraught Harry finding out why, exactly, Snape despises him. However, don't let that detract from this chapter; it's fairly steamy, and I would probably give this particular portion an M-plus rating for harried and somewhat sad adolescent experimentation. For those who like it (or at the very least don't hate it), there is a significant chunk of Harry/Cho in this chapter. It's my take on the kiss in the Room of Requirement.

Also, there are a few credits I need to give. I wrote this chapter to "The Chemicals Between Us" by Bush. The only arrangement of "De Profundis" I have ever seen or heard was one written by a friend of mine, Kane Bradley, for the Arkansas Tech University Concert Chorale. Lastly, the quoted, rhyming portion is taken directly from a poem entitled "At a Dinner Party" by Amy Levy.

Driven

"The human voice, while talking, undergoes various manipulations to procure the correct sound for the word being pronounced. What comes from the mouth is actually a complex communication between brain, nerve endings, and musculature that allows the tongue to lave at rolling 'l' sounds or to hiss appropriately for the sibilance of 's.' While singing, the words must be enunciated more clearly. For instance, if you pronounce the word 'light' while singing the way you pronounce it while speaking, only the first few rows in the audience will understand the word. The rest of the auditorium will only hear 'lie.' It is imperative, then, that you say the word with feeling and conviction, uttering each sound as though it will be the last thing the audience will hear. Therefore, you should practice with each individual letter. How does it feel against your tongue? Do you swallow vowels in the back of your throat, or do you thrust them forward into your teeth? You should apply this principle to spell work. There is no way to fail during a vocal command if you have a sufficient working knowledge of the sounds involved during the spell. Only a fraction of charms is wandwork. Most of it is confidence and conviction, so if you can push your intent into your voice, the chances of your spell succeeding multiplies greatly." Finishing his monologue, the room burst into life. About thirty students ranging in age from thirteen to seventeen had gathered to hear Harry speak and were now sounding out each letter for one of three various spells.

This early meeting of Dumbledore's Army had met to merge forces together and to begin working toward an acceptable knowledge of defensive and protective spells. They'd all faced facts; Umbridge wasn't a teacher. She was a torturer, and her primary focus was to spy, proclaiming victory for education and tradition in the name of the Ministry of Magic. Harry figured, but didn't allow his voice to say, that she was probably a Slytherin. Her aim, then, was to serve herself in some manner, and if she did well, there would probably be a big promotion awaiting her for her trouble.

Satisfied that they had enough to work with for the time being, Harry found a corner within the room and propped himself up in it, arms crossed over his chest. This had been an ingenious idea, and though he still felt like a terrible teacher, most of his contemporaries locked away with him once a week in the Room of Requirement thought he was doing a bang up job of it. With a smile and tilted head, he watched, waiting for an explosion. Neville was getting quite good at causing them, but he'd turn, with sheepish eyes, to him and say, "I'm sorry, Harry. I just can't quite get it right."

To keep his mind occupied, he often switched on the music inside his head. It was a combination of Muggle music he remembered from life next door to Dudley who blasted his music at every turn and classical pieces he'd learned while in the choir at school. Sometimes, he remembered just enough of a song to punctuate what was going on in the room around him. Percussive sounds and rolling beats often managed to sync with the action around him, and he could almost soundtrack the learning of spells with the songs that were playing in his head while his students diligently attempted them. For instance, whilst observing his students attempt the Patronus charm, he had been humming to himself his favorite arrangement of a song called "De Profundis." A portion of its lyrics fit beautifully: "Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord, for mercy." What he found by putting magic and music together was that music tended to handle such issues as magic beyond the world, the magic of God and God's kin. He was inclined to believe that God practiced the art of magic to a much higher degree, and that what he and his cohorts at school were doing was a poor imitation of divine work.

But he couldn't afford to drift away into philosophical oblivion. "Constant vigilance!" Moody would have shouted at him, and that's what teaching required. There was no way for him to coast along barely thinking about what was going on; that was a recipe for certain disaster. Teaching was an exercise in patience and militant defense. These kids, though a lot of them were older than he was, were his responsibility, and they were putting their trust in him. They would learn something, and they would be safe while practicing their newfound knowledge.

A sharp movement at the edge of his periphery caught his attention. He turned to discern the source, and he found, with a grip of unexpected excitement, that it was Cho, a young woman on whom he'd had a crush since the previous year, having difficulty with the Patronus charm. She was trying too hard to get results, essentially flailing her wand arm around and shouting the words without the correct intent behind them. He watched bemusedly for awhile as her frustration mounted. When her eyes were nearly crossed with effort, he shoved himself off the wall and sauntered over to her. She tried harder as he approached either hoping he would stop his advance or wishing he would continue and touch her.

"You're going to take someone's eye out," he whispered. She stiffened as he moved behind her.

"It just won't work," she answered. She, in true Ravenclaw fashion, was trying very hard to mask her emotions beneath an experiment that wasn't yielding results. He chuckled and moved in a little closer. He could feel the heat from her body radiating into his as she began to give in to the pressure his chest and abdomen offered. She leaned into him, and though she wished his adolescent body were taller, harder, manlier, it was sufficient enough for the moment to wipe out her memory of another boy and his untimely death. When Harry next spoke, she shivered. His mouth was right next to her ear.

"Like this, Cho," he said softly. His own hand clasped her right wrist just below her wand hand and moved her arm for her.

Her breath caught in her throat. When had Harry become so confident? Where was the shy retiring boy who had asked her sheepishly to the Yule Ball this time last year? His fingers held none of the tremor she expected from a boy she knew to be head over heels infatuated with her. His hand gripped her wrist firmly and gave her tactile instruction in the proper wand movement. There was no trembling; there was only strength and self-assuredness.

"Your biggest problem, Cho, is not technique. You have enough knowledge of technique to be a practical charms teacher yourself, but your intent is all wrong. That's why your Patronus won't work." She nestled a little further into Harry's chest. He was in control of this situation, and it allayed, for the time being, any fears she entertained. Ignoring her sinking into his chest, he continued to talk. "You have to summon the happiest memory you have. You have to recall how happy you were. Let it plant its seeds in your belly, and they'll grow." His whisper was maddeningly soft against her ear, but the press of his body against hers was insistent even if it was only fraternal in its meaning.

"Okay," she breathed. A hand had crept up her abdomen and was now tightly clenching her chest cavity.

"Close your eyes," Harry whispered. He was beginning to feel a creeping warmth that started in his knees and rose slowly up to his neck. Cho pressed against him in a manner that he recognized as wanting, wanton, and withering. Whatever resolve she'd implemented to avoid him was fast dissolving because of their position. "Conjure up the image that made you happiest." He had to clear his throat; a pubescent squeak had threatened to bark through and put a wrinkle on his confidence.

She obeyed his command, and behind her eyelids, what she wanted to see and what she saw were very different images. She wanted to see the love she had lost. She wanted to see a hardworking, handsome Hufflepuff who stumbled upon the return of the Dark Lord.

The first kiss she had shared with Cedric Diggory had been sweet. He'd bought her a quill with never-ending ink, and she was so excited about the prospect of taking notes without having to refill the sharpened tip of her pen that she'd run to him, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing herself to his front. When she pulled away to smile at him in gratitude, there was only a slow light beginning to brighten in his grey eyes. With a slight tilt of his head forward, she understood that he wanted a kiss, even if it were only a small one. She'd given it to him, a peck on his square-lined jaw. His arms never faltered, though, and he tightened his grip on her. A tenderness she didn't understand, that wasn't even really in her vocabulary, began to sweep upon her, and before she could stop herself with her rational mind, her reactionary mind had taken over. She stood on her toes without thinking and pressed her lips to his. It was quick and insubstantial, but he'd grabbed her ribs to hold her up and moved his mouth until she'd given the power over to him. He led the kiss, and he orchestrated the lingering touch on the small of her back that drove her further into him. When she pulled away, she was breathless, but her relationship with Cedric was punctuated with moments like these. Long sentences ended in declarations. There were no questions, no exclamations, no ellipses. When he died, she'd been trying to work up the nerve to find a corner and show him his reward for fighting bravely in the Tournament, but Harry'd come back with the dead body instead, and her worry had never been actualized.

Now, instead of seeing Cedric's heart-shaped mouth in front of her, she saw instead Harry's slim upper lip and the chin that jutted beneath it. His features were sharp and clear in front of her, and the memory she'd wanted to see of Cedric was blurry. She wanted to hang onto it, but found it was easiest to cast it aside and concentrate on the younger boy's body behind her. What she felt was her own body giving over to the pleasure of a hard, lean chest supporting her. It was different than her memory of Cedric's body; he'd been taller, broader, more muscular. Harry was shorter and thin with a boy's body just beginning to come into its own. The Boy Who Lived had hit puberty a little late, and his frame was overgrown while his muscles and face were struggling to keep up. She imagined being happiest when Harry had spoken of magic in relation to music. Magic she understood; its theory was practical and necessary, but music was a Muggle creation. It was a magic older than even wizards' magic, and she imagined that it stemmed from something greater, even, than wizards and Hogwarts. She couldn't know that Harry's thoughts centered around the same idea. Magic was God in humanity recognized; music was God exemplified in words and song. If she had known that, the tingle that had begun between her legs would have lit up in a fully-fledged blaze. As a Ravenclaw, intelligence was the greatest turn-on. New ideas fostered recognition of the intellect as if to say, "I look across the fruit and flowers; my glance your glances find. This is our secret, only ours, since all the world is blind."

Harry squirmed behind her, but he was careful not to break her reverie. Her breathing had become sharper, quickened with, what he imagined to be, slightly impure thoughts. If it took memories of a semi-sexual liaison to force Cho into a mindset comparable to happiness, he was willing to accept that. However, he had a sneaking suspicion that she was imagining him. In his own mind were racing thoughts that were much more than slightly impure. He had begun fantasizing again, and though he wanted to keep his mind from drifting into the carefully concealed X-rated files he'd learned to keep from Snape, he found he shifted further toward them the more he tried to stop himself.

A slight tremor began in Cho's knees, and she leaned heavier against Harry. His arms, before he thought about it, snaked around her middle and held her up. He felt a certain amount of detached horror at his action; she was a student, and this was a training session. Propriety railed against him, accused him of indecency, and sulked off to the corner when he, subdued by the smell of a girl in his arms, shoved it to the side. He thrust propriety aside and pressed his lips to her ear. A thrill of unexpected pleasure burst through him, and for a second, he was unfortunate to recognize sexual tension. Embarrassed by the stiffening in his slacks, he tried to back away, but she only pressed harder against him.

In her mind, she was viewing the scene from all angles. There were Harry's surprisingly strong arms around her midsection. His mouth was resting against her right earlobe. Breaths tickled her neck and condensed to form a layer of warm, moist heat that cooled as he breathed in. Her mind was slipping toward the lair of the body, and as she began to drop toward the pool of forgetfulness and pleasure, she heard his voice crackling through the electrically charged air. "You have it; let it go."

"_Expecto patronum!_" she shouted though it was more a moan for all the near-erotic conviction in her voice. But it worked. A white bowl came from her wand and expanded to form a swan that surprised Harry. How was a swan supposed to protect her from dark forces? It didn't matter, he thought. Hermione's own Patronus was an otter. It looked like it might conquer foes with intense and irrational giggling, but a swan? How fierce could they be?

The swan fluttered gracefully before Cho until her concentration broke, and she nearly collapsed from effort. Harry gripped her tighter, clenching his teeth at the splintering shards of pleasure coursing through him. As she gasped for breath, he held her tightly. Hands clasped his wrists; they supported her weight a little easier, but she still relied heavily on his strength. With a shudder and a sigh, she slowly dislodged herself from his embrace and turned to face him. She couldn't meet his eyes nor could she look down for fear of actually seeing the results of her display. He simply cleared his throat and made his way to the front of the room, crossing it in long-legged strides.

"All right, everyone. I think that's quite enough for the day. Great work, and have a good holiday," he said through a convincing and brilliant smile. It drove the other students' suspicions away from the impressive bulge at his groin, and with nods of acceptance, the room cleared except for Cho who stood stolidly in a corner, wand arm still outstretched, her eyes disbelieving and her brow furrowed in complete concentration.

"Did _THAT _just verge on improper?" she barely managed. It was nearly a whisper, and Harry was glad a second later for the sound of the heavy door to the Room of Requirement shutting with a quiet but decisive sound that echoed over the marble floors.

"I would be reluctant to call rousing impure thoughts to summon a useful charm 'improper,' Cho." He spoke through a smile, but he was a little doubtful of his answer. She dropped her wand arm and turned slowly to face him.

"I don't know what happened. One minute, I was trying to focus on Cedric's mouth, and the next, I was leaning closer to you. I felt consumed and swallowed by what was happening to me, and before I could stop it, I was falling." Harry nodded in agreement. He felt it when she pressed against him, the moment when she gave up trying to resist her feeling, and she'd let it fly out in her Patronus.

"There are worse things, I suppose," he murmured trying his best in his inexperienced, adolescent way to placate her.

"I suppose you're right," she answered and pocketed her wand. A now-familiar electric tingle began to course through her. It seemed to puddle on the floor and travel toward him because they gasped in tandem and began moving toward each other.

"I won't ask what you had to think of," Harry whispered as he felt his legs move him before his mind could stop them. They were reacting of their own accord, and he was powerless. Wasn't this something he wanted?

"I won't ask what it made you think of," Cho answered. This was strange, a drawing together of incongruities. She didn't want this, and from the look on his face, neither did he. Her brain told her to stop moving, but she was being led forth on shaking legs. A noose had wrapped itself around her neck; this motion meant a second and unfair death for Cedric, but she couldn't contain her curiosity nor could she deny the implications this moment would have on her future.

"What is it you want from me?" His voice had taken on an uncharacteristic rumble, and it sang through her blood and directly to the aesthetic part of her brain that found beauty. It was very small and taken over slightly by classical, more traditional values of beauty exemplified in art, but it was there. He was no David wrenched unblinkingly from marble, handsome but bearing little in terms of real maleness, nor was he an Adonis that offered little more than youth and unabashed sexuality. Instead, he was a messenger, youthful like Hermes, and full of the candor that pubescence brings to uncomfortable situations like Orpheus, too curious to stop himself from looking over his shoulder for guidance and assurance. She would give him both.

"Whatever you feel you can give me at present," she answered, horrified. Her mental voice was asking, though, "When did Harry become so masculine? With such power?" She shivered while the opposite side of her mind shouted, "He's male, you twit! Think! Deny! Run away! Run away!" She only succeeded in taking another step closer.

His last step landed him merely inches away from Cho's expectant face. He was taller than her, though not by much, and he found himself trying not to collapse from the force of incessant tingling. Whatever this was, whatever had managed to assuage the pain and worry of being Voldemort's marked man, he wanted more of, and he spoke the only word he knew that begged and commanded at the same time. "Please."

In a second, she had lunged at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her chest to his. A shock of new and uncertain sensations ripped through him. Her breasts were firm and seemed to rest against him in a strange but interesting sort of way. Slender arms snaked around his neck and pulled him forward. Warm, wet lips moved against his own. A tongue tapped at his mouth seeking entrance. He gave it without heed to the consequences, and thinking he should, he closed his eyes, relegating his mind to the hope of finding an appropriate response.

"There should be something," Harry's mind spoke to him softly. "Why don't you feel anything?" The kiss continued despite his inability to answer his mind. Though there was no intestinal clasp to tell him of more than superficial pleasure, he knew that action was expected of him, so he did what he'd seen in films. He grabbed her, lifted and braced her against his narrow hips, and held her firmly against him. She responded by holding him tighter and unexpectedly moaning into his mouth. He was a little shocked for he had nothing beyond biology to press him forward.

He collided with a wall as he sought for a place to relieve her insistent grip on his neck. Pressed against cold marble, she pulled away to look at him. Brown eyes bore into his green ones, but they lingered for only a second. She lunged toward him again, and he, while still holding her up, was powerless to stop the onslaught. Tongues pressed against each other, and bodies struggled to gain purchase. A hand gripped his head and pulled hard at his hair, shoving him away from her mouth. His head jerked back, and he looked at her with something akin to heat. She felt it, felt its near falsity, but she kept going in direct opposition to what her logic was telling her.

Long, limber legs slid down his, and dainty Mary-Janed feet planted themselves on the floor. He watched them with an interest detached from the situation. Anything was better than this uncertainty. Maybe he wasn't trying hard enough. His body didn't seem to mind. It was reacting accordingly. There had been the stuffy, uncomfortable feeling of stiffness pressed into an unyielding body, so at least he wasn't failing there, but beyond that, where was the passion? He had boarded a train that was allowing him to see the events of this, his first make-out session, with an air of non-involvement. "This is a mistake!" he said to himself, but that didn't stop him from moving forward or from watching in frightened amusement as one preternaturally intelligent hand swept down his jumper-clad stomach and over the bulge in his trousers.

This time, the tremor came from far below the surface and became a guttural cry for more. He looked into her eyes, and her mouth, the mouth that had kissed him with such abandon, was smirking at his inexperience, his immaturity. "You have it, Harry; let it go." She was using his own words against him, and with a growl he wasn't sure came from him, he forced her against the wall again. The cry was hers now, and his fingers, so uncertain of measuring potion ingredients and unfortunately shaky in charms, were fully aware of their power in the dark arts, and seduction, he was sure, was among the darkest of them. They grabbed one of her breasts roughly, and her hand, still wavering just above his trousers, accidentally clamped on him. The flash of pain and then of anger on his face alerted her to danger, but she couldn't stop the ball from moving. She'd advanced it too far; this was going to move toward a finish of which she had originally been wary. It seemed she was about to lose some integral part of selfhood against a cold, barren wall in an impersonal room in Hogwarts.

"Harry…" she gasped, trying to regain some control. He looked at her, but there was none of the cute boy who'd shown a fawning interest in her. This look of his was animal and a little scary. With a swallow and a quick decision on her part, she reached up from his trousers and pressed his hand beneath the pleats of her uniform skirt. A burning sensation engulfed her as his fingers sought beneath the elastic of her underwear. He wasn't sure, exactly, what he was looking for, but when he found "it," her hand clamped on him again, and she threw her head back against the wall. He forgave her the trespass and reached downward, fumbling for the button and zipper of his trousers for equal contact.

Trembling hands rushed to help him, and scared, doe-like eyes pleaded with him to keep going. There was fear and great excitement, but neither party was willing to back down and say "No." Those frightened fingertips wiggled their way into the openings at zipper and underwear fly. They gripped gently and insistently. A familiar and unwanted feeling was already building, and the hand encased in warm, wet, women's underwear doubled its efforts to bring about the end that was already fast-approaching.

Within minutes, they were both crying out, releasing like adolescents do, with their whole bodies. Heads were thrown back. Lips curled over gritted teeth. Abdomens tightened as wave after wave of tension wracked them. Knees gave way, and they found themselves on the floor. Cho lay somewhat beneath Harry in an uncomfortably curled position as he struggled to catch his breath with his head on her chest. She pushed weakly at his shoulder to get him to move, and he did so, throwing himself on his back beside her. "What was that?" he ventured when he could talk.

"Murder," she said simply, and she fell silent again. He didn't question her words, but it seemed to fit. They were quiet for a long time, the sounds of their breathing slowing filling the empty room. The tension was gone, and the expectancy had finally lifted.

"I guess it would be pretty silly of me to apologize, wouldn't it?" he asked. Green eyes turned up to look at her, and he saw, from his vantage point, that she was crying. Crying! She'd just had a body-numbing climax, and she was crying! Huge, salty tears fell from her eyes and streaked down her temples into her straight, raven hair. Women were strange creatures, Harry decided.

"Yes, it would be." Still shaking from the force of her climax, she stood and walked primly for her wand which she used to scourgify herself. "This didn't happen." Harry nodded in acceptance. "This was a mistake. I like you Harry, but that was supposed to be given to someone else." He swallowed the anger that threatened to rise.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, still lying on the floor.

"Forget it," she said and walked out of the room with none of the confidence she'd had when she was gripping him. And he, since he had other things to do, set about pushing the event out of his mind.

--

Sleep for Harry that night was a fitful ordeal, and he was forced, more than once, to lie awake with the memories of Cho's instigation of carnal pleasure at the forefront of his mind. Even through it all, though, he had felt little more than the necessary. There was the arousal and the climax, but beyond that, he felt nothing. He supposed he should have thanked her, but he couldn't even muster up the desire for that. There was nothing for him in the fantasy he'd begun and carried out in the Room of Requirement. It fell flat, stale, to the bottom of his mind. He'd told Ron and Hermione that they'd kissed beneath mistletoe in the Room, but all he could tell them was that it had felt "wet." Ron had laughed at that, but Harry felt disturbed. There hadn't been a second of intense yearning for him.

But sleep finally did come, and there were dreams. He was back in the Room of Requirement, but this time, there was no one else with him. It looked just the way it had when he'd been there with Cho, and he could almost diagram the whole event in his mind. Instead, there was little to signify anything untoward had happened there. He thought he saw, but he couldn't prove it, a slight indentation in the wall where he supposed they had pressed their heated bodies into it. Beyond that, though, there was nothing except a voice that crept through the silence and whispered in his ear.

"I know what you've done, Mr. Potter." That voice was familiar, silky, nearly a purr. Gripping his wand tighter, he turned and looked for the source.

"Where are you?"

"You put me here; why don't you find me?"

"Professor?" he spoke into the blackness.

Footsteps began to move toward him, and preparing himself to blast an attacker, he watched as Snape seemed to materialize from nothing in front of him. "You and that Chang girl. Tsk tsk tsk, Mr. Potter. I would have thought you'd wait until you at least felt something." He crossed his black-clad arms across his chest. His robes gave a characteristic billow. "Instead, you let biology take you over, and now that silly woman is crying over the guilt she feels." Harry puffed with visible anger. "Oh, did I strike a nerve?" The efficient sounds of hard-soled shoes hitting the marble filled the room as Snape began to slowly circle him. "You took what should have been Cedric's. You don't even feel proud of it, but you did it. And, Mr. Potter, thinking about it is making you rise to the occasion."

He felt a familiar stiffening if only for the memory of his would-be conquest. Embarrassed, Harry reached to cover himself but found he was naked and the action was essentially useless. "Where are my clothes?"

"I don't know, Mr. Potter. Perhaps you wish to debase yourself in atonement." The student glared at the professor.

"What am I supposed to feel?" The words burst out of his mouth without his thinking about them. "I felt nothing. It just happened, and I reacted. Who am I! What am I supposed to do! I have these dreams, and I want something else, something more. Powerful, extreme, decisive. I want someone else to take the responsibility. I want someone else to take the initiative. I don't want this! I want answers!" Harry was screaming and trying to withhold tears, but he couldn't stop them as they began to fall.

"You want answers?" In a swift motion, Snape grabbed him and shoved him hard into the wall roughly where he and Cho had their encounter. It was cold, and the sting of something hard against him made him cry out. "You don't deserve answers or compassion. You have to act and stop being such a nancy. Do I make myself clear?" He bent his head and whispered these next words into Harry's ear. "You were _chosen_, Mr. Potter. You don't have a second option. You're the boy who lived, now start acting like him." Harry hiccupped and looked into his professor's face.

"It's too big."

"And you're a petulant, whiny little boy. I could teach you a lesson. I should show you what obedience feels like. The Dark Lord won't hesitate, and you won't be able to stop him."

"Take it all away!" Harry screamed. He heard the sound before he felt the sharpness of the slap on his cheek. There was a feral growl and then flurried movements.

"You have the power! You take it away!"

The next actions were a blur, but Harry felt the moment coalescing with the Rickman fantasy. He was turned roughly, his cheek shoved into the cold marble. The sound of buttons unfastening and zippers unzipping filled his ears, and a shudder of anticipation ran through him. A short-palmed, long-fingered hand gripped his mouth and forced him into silence. He heard the professor spit, and then there was the inescapable shove. A few quick thrusts and Harry was gripping the hand with his teeth so hard in front of him, he tasted blood in his mouth. He came with a cry and woke up with a jolt in a mess of his own release.

"Bloody hell," he said in a voice reminiscent of Ron's. "I have to stop doing this." He scourgified himself and laid back down, but the potion master had taken over his mind. There was no more sleep just as there was already no more Cho.


End file.
